Health Policy and Public Health

Physicians writing on KevinMD about policy as it reaches the exam room: prior authorization and the state and federal rules now written for it, scope of practice laws state by state, the CDC opioid guideline and what forced tapers did to patients, and public health from vaccination to the pandemic. Four maintained records draw on this archive: Prior authorization: what physicians say, in their own words, Scope of practice: what physicians, nurse practitioners, and PAs say, in their own words, Opioids: what physicians and pain patients say, in their own words, and Vaccines: what physicians say, in their own words.

California’s 2026 AI therapy debate is missing families

Nicole Drapeau Gillen

Health Policy

August 16, 2026

Every voice quoted in The Times’ recent coverage of Senate Bill 903 (SB 903), “As AI ‘therapists’ dish out advice, California lawmakers try to set some limits,” belongs to an institution: a legislator, a professional association, a labor union, a tech-industry lobbyist, a bioethicist. Missing from that debate is the voice of the people already living with the consequences: families managing serious mental illness, for whom this isn’t a …

Firearm injury prevention can’t stop at the exam room

Gregory Engel, MD, MPH

Health Policy

August 15, 2026

We health care providers are teachers. Teaching is rooted in the very definition of our profession: The word doctor derives from the Latin docere, meaning “to teach.” Every day, we counsel patients about smoking, nutrition, vaccines, substance use, and injury prevention because we know that education influences health behaviors, improves decision-making, and ultimately saves lives. Firearm injury prevention belongs in those conversations as an important part of comprehensive care.

Clinicians who …

Emergency alerts should never sit behind a login

Gauri Gurumurthy, Jocelyn Chow, Vaibhavi Patankhar, and Michael Draves

Health Policy

August 14, 2026

When catastrophic floods struck Texas on July 4, 2025, killing 78 people, questions quickly emerged about the timing and accessibility of public emergency warnings. In the hours before the disaster, some alerts were delayed amid staffing shortages and funding cuts. Others were posted on private social media platforms, which can often only be viewed with an account. In a crisis where every minute matters, even the smallest obstacles to …

The mass shooting aftermath health care workers rarely name

Christine King, CRNA

Health Policy

August 13, 2026

As mass shootings become more and more common around the country, communities are having to face the aftermath of these horrific events at an ever-increasing rate. Hospital-based health care workers are often faced with treating patients in what is known as a mass casualty event, which we train for, but hope to never see. In the last eight years, I have worked in two separate communities and witnessed mass shooting …

The myth of free health care in Canada

Robert Allan Bear, MD

Health Policy

August 7, 2026

Discussions related to the strengths and weaknesses of the American health care system abound. When discussing the latter, some may argue that the American system should more closely mirror that of its northern neighbor, one that is described as publicly funded and that allegedly provides “free” and readily available health service to all citizens regardless of social status or financial means. Sadly, there is little truth in the above description. …

Read more…

The myth of free health care in Canada

Why using AI to write articles needs an audit trail

Bobby Dubois, MD, PhD

Physician

August 5, 2026

Not long ago, I wrote a Sensible Medicine article about AI called “I invented a headache to test AI and here is what I found.” I concluded that for diagnosing my headache (and a few other conditions), AI got things wrong quite often. When given full history of my problem, it did well, but a typical patient doesn’t know the pertinent negatives and positives to provide the GPT. False-positive …

Why pre-Roe abortion stories matter again after Dobbs

American Medical Women's Association

Health Policy

August 4, 2026

History has a way of repeating itself.

In the years leading up to the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, many women in their seventies, eighties, and nineties still remembered what life was like before Roe v. Wade. They remembered the hidden abortions, the whispered conversations, and the unspoken secrets. A handful of films (including If These Walls Could Talk, A Private Matter, Call Jane, and Ask for Jane) capture pieces of …

AI data centers are a public health crisis

Jessie Hsu

Health Policy

August 2, 2026

There’s a hum in the warm summer air in Lowell, Massachusetts. A low hum, more felt than heard. What could it be? Cicadas? A small plane overhead? Perhaps something much larger, more permanent, and more concerning to public health: an AI data center.

During the summer after my first year of medical school, I was asked by everyone back home my thoughts on AI in medicine. In those conversations, I saw …

Gun violence prevention is a neighborhood story

Ruhi Saldanha

Health Policy

July 31, 2026

Gun violence remains a significant public health and safety concern in the United States. Chicago and New York City are often referenced in national conversations about public safety. Both are highly populated and diverse cities that have histories of concentrated gun violence, neighborhood-level inequalities, and extensive violence-prevention infrastructure.

In 2025, Chicago experienced a 34.5 percent reduction in shootings compared to the previous year. Chicago had 1,471 shooting incidents …

AI medical billing could end the paperwork madness

Kyna Fong, PhD

Health Policy

July 31, 2026

I hate how hard it is for doctors to get paid today. I know I’m not alone. I doubt there are any physicians or practice managers in the U.S. who feel like this current process of charting, coding, denials, quality measurements, and clawbacks is working well.

It’s still worth saying out loud though: I hate it. You probably hate it, too. The whole “revenue cycle management” world that we’ve come to …

Medical frailty exemptions are the new prior authorization

Sameen Farooq, MD

Health Policy

July 30, 2026

Every clinician can attest to the annoyance, stress, and worry that manifests when we think about paperwork. Even the likes of a snake oil salesman currently in charge of CMS, Dr. Oz, penned a piece noting this very real strain on physicians across the U.S. due to prior authorizations. Research has shown that physicians on average are spending up to 13 hours per week on this odious task and …

Medical student advocacy begins before you feel ready

American Society of Anesthesiologists

Medical Education

July 29, 2026

One of my favorite quotes is, “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” I did not fully understand the meaning of that statement until I became involved in advocacy and organized medicine during medical school.

Like many medical students, I entered training focused almost entirely on becoming the …

Nebraska shows health care as an election issue in 2026

Anahita Dua, MD, MBA

Health Policy

July 27, 2026

Nebraska is not always where national political conversations about health care begin, but it is increasingly where they become impossible to ignore. What is unfolding here is a preview of the pressures reshaping health care systems across the country and the elections that will decide their future.

In 2026, health care is no longer confined to policy debates in Washington or state capitals. It is embedded in the workforce, the economy, …

Self-insured employer health plans face a new reckoning

Paul Pender, MD

Health Policy

July 24, 2026

In 2026, the movement in health care toward accountability has begun. A future press release will mark this year as the crescendo that put transparency on price and fiduciary responsibility back into health care. It starts with self-insured employers who have funded health benefits for their workforce under the latest provisions of ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income and Security Act. At long last, the black box that held the secrets …

A broken health care system and the physician shortage

Peter R. Kowey, MD

Health Policy

July 24, 2026

An excerpt from Failure to Treat: How a Broken Healthcare System Puts Patients and Providers at Risk.

Over the course of my career, I have witnessed an inexorable decline in the quality of medical care that we, as physicians, render to our patients. There is a myriad of reasons for this sad development, some the fault of physicians, but the majority caused by a health care system that is almost …

Social determinants of health hide in plain sight

Dr. Rysheme Reid

Health Policy

July 23, 2026

A fifteen-year-old boy arrived at the hospital after what appeared to be a generalized seizure.

The story seemed straightforward. Witnesses described loss of consciousness, convulsions, and urinary incontinence. By the time I met him, the obvious questions had already been asked. The investigations had already begun. A CT scan was ordered. Laboratory tests were pending. Everyone was searching for a neurological explanation, including me.

As I worked through the history, I considered …

The same maternal inequity, from Ecuador to America

Sofia Chicaiza, MD

Health Policy

July 23, 2026

“I want my mom.”

I still remember hearing those words from a twelve-year-old pregnant patient during my internship at a public maternity hospital in Quito, Ecuador. She had become pregnant after being sexually abused by a neighbor and came from a low-income community with limited access to education and health care resources. When I met her, she was alone in a hospital bed during labor, crying and asking for her mother …

A poem for everyone fighting the health care system

Michele Luckenbaugh

Health Policy

July 21, 2026

The steel cage door slams shut.
Its metallic echo reverberates through the arena,
a warning bell for a contest already decided by those selling tickets.
Under the harsh lights stands the patient.
Thin, weary, clutching a stack of medical records
instead of weapons.
Across the cage wait towering opponents.
Corporate health systems, their muscles swollen
with profits and policies.
Government regulations, thick rulebooks
wrapped around their fists.
Pharmaceutical giants, draped in sponsorship banners,
their pockets heavy with the cost of survival.

The crowd …

Why scientific dissent is a test of institutional trust

Tiffiny Black, DM, MBA, MPA

Physician

July 20, 2026

Recently, controversy emerged at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) annual meeting after several researchers were removed for distributing copies of an editorial concerning proposed federal funding cuts to biomedical research. The incident generated debate across the medical community. Some viewed the removal as an appropriate enforcement of conference policies and codes of conduct. Others questioned whether restricting the distribution of scientific perspectives at a professional meeting risks undermining the very …

Physician moral injury, not burnout, is the real wound

Cassandra Craig & Toby Terwilliger, MD

Health Policy

July 20, 2026

“Have you seen The Pitt?”

This question has become commonplace; patients want to know if it is realistic, colleagues want to compare reactions, and many of us find ourselves dissecting the commentary on an imperfect health care system captured in weekly, one-hour installments that mirror physicians’ everyday reality.

The show does many things well: It is medically accurate, faithfully depicts interdisciplinary teamwork, and reveals the humanity and vulnerability of health care workers. …

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